Category Archives: Culture War

When writers and editors are as committed to a political cause as the Washington Post’s writers and editors are committed to the cause of casual abortion, it becomes impossible for them to report on the issue with clarity. Their words get mushy and infused with bias, and their curiosity completely evaporates.

The Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson took to her keyboard again last week to attempt an explanation of the abortion controversy in America, and the results were predictable.

Henderson began by introducing a prominent figure in the abortion debate, Wendy Davis, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Texas who recently made headlines with her personal revelation that she has had two abortions: one that was medically necessary and another that was to end the life of a severely handicapped daughter. She quotes Davis on the latter abortion: “We knew that the most loving thing that we could do for our daughter was to say goodbye.”

Henderson must believe this is an effective and sympathetic quote in support of abortion on demand because she’s used it in two articles. But notice what an inaccurate description it is of what happened. Davis wasn’t a passive observer who merely said goodbye to a dying relative; she chose a “medical procedure” that would stop her daughter’s heart and end her life. Abortion is a life-and-death choice made by the powerful over the powerless, and the Washington Post does its readers no favors by playing along with abortion advocates who are trying to conceal this fact.

The Post’s pro-abortion bias continues with the way that leaders on the two sides of this controversy are portrayed.

Wendy Davis is presented as a courageous career woman who “[shot] to national prominence in 2013 on the strength of a 13-hour filibuster of the restrictive abortion laws.” Notice that although Davis opposes all restrictions on abortion, she is never described as pro-abortion or anti-unborn baby. She’s never given an ideological label such as “leftist” or portrayed as an ill-informed extremist trying to “frame” herself in a particular way. Instead, she is flattered with a portrayal that assumes her sincerity and mentions her national prominence.

Molly White, on the other hand, is a Texas Republican who has admitted having two abortions and suffering psychologically as a result. She opposes casual abortion, so Henderson promptly labels her “a conservative antiabortion activist.” Got that? She’s an ideological fanatic and a negative (anti-rights) activist.

Like Davis, Molly White is also nationally prominent and a hard worker on behalf of vulnerable women and babies, but she is not described that way in this article. The Post’s readers would have to do what I did– use an internet search engine– to learn about Molly White’s career.

The fact that many women suffer for years with regret and horror at the reality of what they did when they were younger is never acknowledged in this superficial piece. There is a mountain of evidence to prove this sad reality, but the Post’s readers would never know it. Instead, they are encouraged to dismiss a woman like Molly White because she merely “argues” that all women are emotionally traumatized by abortion. Readers are left to presume that this is a silly argument that fails to persuade thoughtful people.

When a woman chooses to destroy her own baby, often under duress, she is doing something that completely contradicts her human nature. It should surprise no one that many women pay a steep psychological price for this. It’s time the Washington Post made a serious effort to listen to them.

The Washington Post can’t be honest with its readers about what abortion is and why so many people reasonably object to it. They just can’t.

In an article over the weekend, Nia-Malika Henderson reports on Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis’s revelation that she has had two abortions. Henderson seems to think that Davis is merely doing what conservative women have already done in reverse (Sarah Palin talked about choosing NOT to have an abortion) and courageously opening up the abortion debate for a more “nuanced” discussion.

What Henderson doesn’t see is that Davis’s admission is calculated and carefully wrapped in language designed to fool the public.

Davis admits having two abortions, and they were both for serious medical conditions: a threat to her life in one case and a severely deformed infant in the other. She describes anguish and dark despair over the decision to abort her handicapped daughter, and she deserves our sympathy for both of these experiences.

But look at the contradiction that Henderson doesn’t see. After agonizing over the abortion of a deformed infant daughter, what does Wendy Davis have to say, I wonder, about the millions of healthy daughters who are aborted every year just for convenience or sex selection? If Davis has no objection to abortion on demand (and she obviously doesn’t), how does she reconcile the nation’s epidemic of casual abortion with her personal anguish over a medically necessary abortion? Henderson never points out the contradiction.

The problem here is that Davis’s experience is not a typical example of abortion in America. In spite of the Supreme Court’s decision limiting abortion to the first trimester, abortion is legal in America at all times and for any reason. It is a method of birth control for many people.

Henderson continues to push the abortion lobby’s propaganda by trying to make Wendy Davis look like an abortion moderate. Although Davis famously took to the floor of the Texas legislature in pink running shoes to filibuster a bill that contained a ban on late term abortions, Henderson reports that Davis “has also said that she could support such a prohibition, if deference is ultimately given to the woman and her doctor.” Did you catch what Henderson missed? Davis supports a 20-week ban as long as it’s not really a ban. What a ban! What a moderate!

At the end of her piece, Henderson stumbles across an important truth, but she fails to recognize it for what it is. When this debate began 50 years ago, abortion was called abortion. But it wasn’t popular with the public, so the name was changed to “choice,” and then the public caught on again, so it was changed to “reproductive rights.” Now that is failing too, so we are pushed by opinion makers to call abortion “women’s healthcare.” Henderson recognizes that this is a “benign catchall” for abortion and contraception, but she never asks the obvious question. If access to abortion is a right and a legitimate part of women’s healthcare, then it ought to be a good thing, right? So why do we need a benign euphemism to conceal such a good thing?

In a State Roundup today, the Maryland Reporter says the following (emphasis added):

“In another piece about the Rascovar column, Diana Waterman, chair of the Maryland Republican Party, writes in MarylandReporter.com that while Mr. Rascovar is entitled to his opinion, the Maryland Republican Party finds his partisan attack on members of the party to be both outrageous and slanderous.”

Konabianca has had the pleasure of meeting Diana Waterman, and she can assure the world that Mrs. Waterman is not a chair. She is a chairman. In fact, she is a very human chairman. And, to get personal about it, she is also a Waterman.

For those unfortunate few who have argued with Konabianca, I present today’s installment of the State Roundup as conclusive proof that feminism and political correctness make even smart people stupid.

I first learned of Joy Reid when I heard her on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Hewitt is conservative, but he often invites lefties on his show. Reid is a lefty, but she’s spunky and articulate, so I enjoyed listening to the interview even though I disagreed with just about everything she said.

Following the recent cultural dust up over A&E’s suspension of Phil Robertson, the star of its wildly successful reality show Duck Dynasty, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana made a statement critical of the cable channel. In response to Jindal’s statement, Joy Reid published an open letter to the governor. As usual, Reid is spunky, but wrong. In defense of the governor, I have written an open letter to Joy Reid in the same, well, spunky style.

Dear Mrs. Joy Reid:

It’s me, Konabianca. Mind if I call you Sweetie? Barack Obama calls lady writers “Sweetie,” and I know how much you admire him.

You were pretty tough on the governor, Sweetie, accusing him of being ignorant and not knowing that the First Amendment restrains the government and not a cable channel. But I read the whole statement, and he’s clearly not claiming a violation of the Constitution. He’s pointing out the appalling cowardice and hypocrisy of the media.

Here’s the part of Governor Jindal’s statement that you quoted:

“The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with… [Here you removed the part in which he says he finds much that’s on TV to be offensive but tolerates it anyway] …this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

You see, Sweetie, as the Left has taken control of our culture, our entertainment has become cruder and cruder. And “TV networks,” as well as print media and cable channels, used to loudly defend their right to say and do just about anything on the basis of the protection provided them by the First Amendment.

I won’t list all the disgusting entertainment that I’m talking about. You know what it is. And Governor Jindal mentioned just one recent example, the degrading public sex dance of a formerly wholesome young actress. (Thanks, Lefties!) The governor’s point is that these media businesses that once fought government censors in order to air their trash are now censoring one of their biggest stars merely because he expressed an opinion about homosexual behavior that is out of favor with powerful American elites.

You don’t seem to have read the governor’s statement very carefully because after accusing the former Rhodes Scholar of not understanding the First Amendment, you next accuse him of trying to expand the government to give it control over a cable channel’s business decisions. Read his statement again. He made no such call for government intervention. After all, he is a conservative.

Then, just as I was about to give up on your reasoning skills, you ran headlong into the truth with this quote: “…freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.” Absolutely right! By definition, all our freedoms are costly. Phil Robertson has the freedom to say what he thinks, and other people are free to disagree with him and abandon him. But this works in the other direction too. People in our society are free to engage in homosexual sex and be quite open about it; other people who disapprove of this behavior must also be free to disassociate from those who practice and promote it. Nobody should ever be forced to bake a wedding cake for an event that violates his conscience. Not in America. We may be free to live as we please, but we are not free to force others to abandon their beliefs and pretend they approve of our behavior.

And finally, you have an error about Phil Robertson’s comments in your letter. You said that he is a guy who “equates LGBT Americans with people who have sex with animals.” This isn’t correct. To equate things is to say that they are the same. What Robertson actually said was “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.” He’s plainly NOT equating homosexual behavior with bestiality. To morph is to transform. When we tolerate small sins in our lives, those small sins have a way of morphing into much bigger sins. This is a profound truth that has been taught to Christians for a long, long time.

I’m surprised, Sweetie, that with your Harvard education you don’t have better reading comprehension skills. But hey, I’m just a housewife who went to public schools.

Sincerely,

Konabianca

p.s. About that “stupid party” thing. They must have taught you at Harvard that we have two major political parties in this country. Informally, they are known as the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. Given those two choices, I’ll take stupid any day.

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Konabianca at Yahoo dot com
Twitter: @konabianca

Konabianca at 5:00

Quotable

"What have I done that God should choose to chastise me with such a feeble instrument as the king of Sweden?"
- Catherine II 1788
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"I am going to teach [my daughters] about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
- Barack Obama 2008
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"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."
- Justice Ginsburg 2009
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"Our approach [Obamacare] would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan. It would reduce costs and premiums for millions of families and businesses. And according to the Congressional Budget Office . . . our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades."
- Barack Obama 2010